Deep End

Deep End

1970

Jerzy Skolimowski, director

As I try to see a series of cult films I’ve missed over the years, Deep End kept coming up in conversations and in searches online. I finally got to see it and while it’s a film definitely of it’s time, I’m not as enamoured of it as others have been. 

Warning: contains spoilers

A sometimes funny, certainly tragic story, this film follows the life of 15 year old Mike and his obsession with his older co-worker Susan in a sleazy bath house in swinging London. We never do see a swinging side of London, just the underside of it which in this case is a plus for the story telling. Another high point of the production is the actor who plays Mike looks 15 years old and not like in most films, a 20 years old playing a teenager. 

No one in this film is very likeable... including Mike who we are supposed to identify with.  Sure he’s a typical kid with a crush but he’s as creepy as the gym teacher his love interest (who is engaged) is having an affair with. The clients of the bath house are not the most normal of people as you might imagine either but they do provide comic relief and a little pity depending on your point of view. 

The performances are appropriately awkward and all the minor characters pull in solid performances. I didn’t find anything special with the photography. I should say i saw an old copy of the film and not a restored version. I’ve seen stills form a cleaner, better print and they looks 100 times better than the print I viewed. 

I did the find the ending... odd. To say the least. The very least. In a nutshell, the two principals have sex in the empty pool which means everything to Mike but nothing to Susan. In his rage and as the pool fills with water after a custodian starts to fill it not realizing people are in the pool, Mike swings a heavy light into Susan... cracking open her head. She slides into the water unconscious and he fucks her dead or dying body. So the character we are meant to sympathize with is a killer necrophiliac. He makes no effort to save her life at all. 

Not a bad film by any means and has it’s interesting points but I found the whole thing very hard to relate to on any level. Maybe that was the point.. this characters can’t really even relate to themselves, but the end seen was more confusing than anything in my view. 

Slammer Podcast Recommendations

I can’t live without my iPod (I don’t have a cell phone however) but not because I listen to tons of music. I listen to podcasts, free radio broadcast like shows you can find for free on iTunes. There a re video and audio podcasts on every subject imaginable and while I listen to many science and skeptical podcasts, I’ve find a couple really great ones for film freaks.

The Projection Booth

This is an amazing recourse. I many ways it is like a continuation of the Danny Peary Cult Movie books in how the information is presented. The presenters give you an overview of the film, usually a cult film that not even I have heard of along with interviews, history, production stories and discussions on why this film has a following... or should. 

Cinefantastique Online

The print magazine has quite the nice accompanying podcast and while the quality isn’t always the best the reporting is lively and interesting. They cover all genre films (sci-fi, horror etc) and also broadcast interviews along with critiques and discussions. They also do what all slammers love to do... watch terrible movies and then talk about then for hours. 

Podcasts are great to listen to at the gym, working on something visual where audio won’t distract you, driving on trips... anywhere you need a slight distraction form tedious or long task. 

Any other recommendations? 

The Devil Doll - 1936

Directed by Tod Browning and starring Lionel Barrymore as with Maureen O'Sullivan this film could be summed up as: A banker wrongly convicted of robbery and murder by his three partners escapes prison to get revenge, clear his name and win back the respect of his estranged daughter. Of course, that description is accurate but ignores all the WTF going on in this bizarre movie. 

Barrymore as Paul Lavond escapes with a mad scientist who is determined to help extend the world's resources by shrinking every living thing to the size of a Barbie doll with the help of his somewhat crippled, huge eyed, black haired with a big white streaked wife who is named Malita, of all things. The scientist dies in the escape and Malita decide to clear the banker's name so she and he can forward her husband's somewhat poorly thought out agenda. 

Lavond decides the best way to proceed is spend most of the film dressed as an old woman and use the devilish dolls, who are real people shrunk down, to kill his betrayers and force them to confess. These little assassins have no will of their own and can be controlled....somehow... to do his bidding. How the scientist thought mindless zombie dolls were humanities future is never explained. Nor is it explained how they feed them or stop them from peeing and pooping themselves when given to his enemies children as a toy. Maybe they come with diapers. 

M. Lavond manages to befriend his daughter who is living in poverty with his mother for the purpose of hearing how much she hates him and the spot he has put his family in with his incarceration. His daughter is fooled by drag easily enough and confides in him that she also can't marry the boy she loves because of the shame that has been associated by the family name. 

Malita goes bat shit crazy(er?) when Barrymore's character finally succeeds in clearing his name and wants out of the shrinking scheme and kills herself and the mini people in a fire. You'd think he would be happy and free and clear. But no! For some really inexplicable reason he tells the daughter's boyfriend everything and then tells her he is the dead the scientist and her father (who she does not recognize out of drag either even though his photo has been posted all over town during his escape) is dead. So she gets the business and the money and her name cleared so she can marry while he heavily hints he will kill himself, apparently for her... happiness ? 

I just don't get it, she would be much happier getting to know her father again while he retakes his business. Plus her boyfriend will have to live with this secret being kept from her forever. I'm sure she would kill him on the spot if she knew he knew that old man was really her missing dad! 

In any case , the film is brilliant and somehow Browning manages to make all this insane storyline seem perfectly natural. The visuals are great, the living dolls are better than in Bride of Frankenstein, which I believe we're also created to save the planet. 

Sadly, the earth had 2 billion people when this was made and  7 billion now and we still aren't a race of devil dolls! 

Broads

Father of the Children of the Gods

Jean Gaspard Deburau

King o' the mimes - and a Slovak!

Rumba .......................!!

Film Fun star headers

From Cute to Insane in 7 minutes

Ray Harryhausen 1920-2013

The innovative puppet animator Ray harryhausen dies this week, it's a huge loss to classic film effects fans and marks the end of an era of physical effects artists that started with Willis O'Brien in the silent film era. 

On personal level, Mr. Harryhausen was a hero of my childhood. While other kids wanted to be fireman and later astronauts... I wanted to work in a small room alone animating puppets to life for films. Films like "The beast from 20 000 Fathoms" are still in my list of top ten films to watch over and over for not just entertainment, but inspiration. 

Right up until his death, this pioneer was still working on new projects. These varied from new puppet animations based on Poe's works to colourizing his earlier films for a new audience.. something I normally would abject to but after meeting him a couple years ago and hearing his reasons for doing, I was convinced he was doing the right thing. They were, after his films to decide what was best for their continued enjoyment by fans. 

Ray never wanted to go the computer route with animation, he liked the physical models and the not so real quality of mixing them with real actors and sets. He did develop techniques used by others, including a way to move the models while clicking the shutter each frame to give them a motion blur.. making them look hyper real. He never used this in any of his films, however, thinking it would take away from the fantasy look. 

No one ever made films like him... and likely never will. he was a genre of film making unto himself. Luckily his monster films, Sinbad series and others are still around to remind us of his greatness and still give that spark of creativity to future artists. 

“Affanculo, dahling!” PHOTOSHOPPED - but hadta